The effects of congested schedules on load, recovery and injury in professional football players – Background and solutions

As teams and leagues prepare to return to competition in an unprecedented way amidst a global health crisis, the attention of performance practitioners around the world is largely on the ability to mitigate injury risk should competitions return with a schedule featuring increased congestion.

Catapult sports scientist, Kieran Howle, who previously worked with the Western Sydney Wanderers in Australia’s A-League, has co-published multiple research papers and recently recorded a webinar which defines what congested schedules are, provides a summary of relevant literature, shares some personal findings, and digs into a data-rich case study.

The key messages from the webinar include:

Research on congested schedules report mixed findings for performance, recovery, and injury.